A Life Without Spice
by DelektorskiChick
Summary: Part three of the Nightmare Series. Tony wakes up from a nightmare and thinks it's still happening. What will he do without the one constant in his life? Rated M for mild language and... well, the reason's in the chapter.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: **I apologize in advance for this story; there were probably four or five different ways I could have written this nightmare and they all wanted to have their say. Since I couldn't play favorites and have Tony with multiple nightmares (because there IS actually a _plot_ behind all this fluff and angst; besides which Clint would then have, like, eight.) I decided to write them as dreams within dreams.

So what if I watched Inception a few days ago? *twiddles thumbs and stares off innocently into the distance, humming tunelessly* What?

Much thanks to my wonderful beta MountainRose for keeping me on track with this story. Without her, it'd be a bunch of semi colons and ellipses and nothing coherent whatsoever.

Anyway, here's A Life Without Spice… aka Tony's Worst. Dream. Ever. Including the one where Dummy tried to murder him in his sleep.

**Warnings: **Rated M (I'm very conservative with my ratings, if you couldn't tell…) for brief language and (SPOILER!) character death.

**Disclaimer: **I do not now, nor have I ever owned anything having to do with proprietary rights to Marvel and the Avengers.

.0.o.0.o.0.

Cold. Dark. Pain.

Screams.

Bubbles distorted the sound of those screams as they broke the surface of the water.

Tony Stark was not a happy camper; first off, his own damn weapons had been used to capture him, and then he'd had open heart surgery with _no anesthetic_ to connect a _car battery_ to his chest. The battery lay by his feet, out of sight, but not forgotten. The lip of the tub pressed the wires snaking from the hole in his chest down to it into his chest; every time he tried to breathe it jarred still-open incisions and broken ribs.

Laughter. There was laughter coming from above him. He could just hear it through the turmoil of his thrashing in the water.

The bad guys had come in, all smiles and promises, asking him to make a Jericho missile for them.

And he'd said no.

He was regretting that decision now.

The _best_ part about this water torture was the fact that when water got into the… metal cylinder… in his sternum… it _burned_, like thousands of bees crawling in his chest. He decided that, once they stopped, if they ever stopped, he was going to make sure that they never did anything like this again.

He and Yinsen… they'd make sure.

Tony Stark had decided. The world really did need heroes. And he was going to be one of them.

.0.o.0.o.0.

Tony pulled himself from his flashback with a start, wondering if anyone else had noticed his drift off into his past. If the number of people laughing quietly with one another and calling for champagne meant anything, no one had.

"Sir? You alright?"

Well, Hogan had.

Tony shook himself slightly, and plastered a smile on his face. "Yeah, I'm fine, of course I'm fine. Just look at this," he gestured with his glass, "An entire room filled with _beautiful _ladies." The bodyguard's smile was quickly replaced by a stern look and a subtle nod of his head for Tony to turn around. The billionaire sighed. He knew this event would be crawling with reporters; why had he decided to come here without a plus one again? Even that mousey assistant from the office would have done nicely…

"She's actually quite cute, sir."

"That means she's alright, coming from you." Tony sighed. "Remind me to have Sam… Sarah? Stacey? Remind me to have my assistant to copy me on all future party plans. This one has too many ambulance chasers for my taste." Tony turned around, and his breath left him. Just in front of him had to be the most gorgeous woman he'd ever seen.

Strawberry hair fell in soft waves just past her shoulders, her eyes a deep blue that seared him all the way down to his battered soul. Then there was her _smile_; as she walked up to the bar next to him, she made the room around her sparkle.

To be fair though, _that_ might have been his fourth champagne.

"Cute? You _heretic_." Tony barely heard Hogan chuckle at his muttered comment; he was too focused on the goddess in front of him. "So, where did you come from, and are there more out there like you?"

There was a barely noticeable roll of the beauty's eyes as she huffed out a little laugh. His world spun.

"Let me guess, Brown?"

"Actually, I'm a Berkley girl, Mr. Stark." Never in the entirety of Tony Stark's life had a woman's voice alone given him such a hard on. If he ever got embarrassed, now would be the time… but all he could think about was the woman in front of him.

"I'm so sorry, but I don't believe we've officially met." Tony said. The woman held out her hand.

"My escort is around here somewhere, but I wanted to meet you and couldn't wait for him. My name is Virginia, Virginia Potts."

.0.o.0.o.0.

_Mwah-ha-ha-ha! Leaving you hanging! Please review!_


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: **Just so you guys know, without MountainRose, this piece wouldn't be nearly as awesome as it is. Thank you for being a wonderful beta/therapist/guru!

**Warning:** This is where the story earns its rating. BE FORWARNED!

**Disclaimer: **I am not in any way shape or from affiliated with Marvel or the Avengers. If I were, there would most definitely be a Black Widow/Hawkeye movie in the works. Or two. Or three…

.0.o.0.o.0.

"-ark. Stark! TONY!"

'For such a genius,' Tony thought to himself, 'I sure can fall asleep in the _worst_ positions.' Not only was most of his body from the waist down propped up on the coffee table, but his neck had cricked from lying over the back of the couch. He'd been waiting for his assistant-of-the-week to arrive with the ghost drive; his body had, apparently, decided to finally catch up on some sleep he'd lost from those last couple of all-nighters. Not that he objected in the slightest; apart from the flashback, the dream he'd been having was _delightful_.

"You're not even listening to me, are you?"

Right. He came back to reality then, and had Obadiah ranting somewhere above his head. With a sharp intake of breath, Tony managed to focus on the yelling, lying, selling-Tony's-own-weapons-to-terrorists traitor.

"Obie, calm down. I was in the middle of one of the best dreams I've ever had, involving a beautiful ginger and some of the best scotch of my life. What the fuck happened?"

"I'll tell you what happened, you ungrateful little prick. I caught your assistant trying to hack into my computer. Unfortunately for her, that's where it all ended."

Tony was suddenly paralyzed in his seat, ears ringing, and was that _blood_ dripping from his ear? He couldn't move, could hardly breathe. Only his brain seemed to be working, and that was going haywire. Sally; her name popped into his mind with sudden clarity; Sally was _dead?_ But Obie was here… and he was saying something that had nearly stopped his damaged heart all together.

"When I ah, ordered the hit on you, I worried that I was killing the golden goose." Obadiah pulled something out of his bag and put what Tony recognized as a short wave sonic device, one he'd invented years ago and promptly forgotten, away in his pocket. Paralysis, he remembered, it caused short term paralysis; safer than gas for the ones using it, but too expensive for military-scale use. It had apparently been missed in the prototypes vault during his giant weapons purge of Stark Industries.

_That_ had been a mistake.

Obie kept talking. The device in his hand now was all cutting points and sharp prongs; Tony tried to get away from it, tried to fight. But he couldn't move.

"But you see, it was just fate that you survived that." A grunt was ripped from Tony as the gleaming silver in Obie's hand latched onto the arc reactor in his chest. The pain was… well, _intense_ would be putting it mildly. It heated to burn through his shirt, and the reactor housing conducted the heat straight down into his chest. The claw also pulled the reactor out without disengaging the electromagnet; as Obadiah turned his hand, the shards of shrapnel in his chest _twisted_.

The glow from the reactor lit up Obadiah's face from below. "You had one last golden egg to give." Tony met his eyes. No… he wouldn't.

"Did you really think that just because you have an idea, it belongs to you? Your father, he helped give us the atomic bomb. Now what kind of world would it be today if he was as selfish as you?"

With a firm but steady yank, Obadiah pulled the reactor from his chest. When Tony tried to scream, all that came out was a wheezing yelp. Pain. God, the _pain_.

The shrapnel was moving again, traveling towards his heart; he could feel the damage it was leaving behind, feel it short and sharp, in his left arm and in his chest.

"Oh, it's beautiful isn't it? Oh Tony. This is your ninth symphony." Obie sat down on the couch next to him, just like old times when they used to be friends. "Oh, what a masterpiece. Look at that. This is your legacy." Tony's body shuddered. Why wasn't it moving yet, damn it! "A new generation of weapons, with this at its heart."

The arc reactor was glowing over both of their faces. "Weapons that will help steer the world back on course, put the balance of power in our hands. The right hands." Obie chuckled a bit as he put the reactor in his briefcase.

Obadiah got up and walked away without a glance.

"I wish you could see my prototype. It's not as, well, conservative as yours, but I think the government will like it just fine."

.0.o.0.o.0.

It took forever for Tony to regain any movement at all. His chest hurt so bad that he barely noticed at first, but then it grew more evident, as did his need for revenge. There was no way in _hell_ Tony was going to let Obie get his bloodstained hands on SI; his might be no cleaner, but Tony had been through hell. He'd spit in the devil's eye and come out, well, not quite laughing, but he'd come out.

Hell changed a man, sometimes for the better. He had Stark Industries on a new track now, a better track. And he planned to keep it that way.

His legs still didn't really work, but somehow he managed to get into the elevator, punching the button as he slammed into the wall. Even if he could talk, he doubted JARVIS would answer. He hadn't heard from him in awhile; Obadiah must have done something to the AI to keep it from calling for help. He stumbled out and hit the door to his garage-slash-workshop. He cast his eyes around; there had to be _something_ he could use to get his electromagnet working again, but there wasn't anything _here_, there wasn't enough _time_.

He couldn't even use the car batteries; his magnet was too streamlined, too _updated_, too _sophisticated_. His words from when he'd talked with Sally about his new reactor had come back to haunt him.

His best shot would be to stick a screwdriver into an electrical socket; at least then he'd die quickly instead of having the shrapnel inch its way slowly into his heart.

His heart. Who knew he even had one?

He fell to the ground; without anything to support him, Tony was forced to crawl. He didn't know towards what, if it was salvation or comfort, but soon he was surrounded by his 'bots. His family. All he had left. The only things he had left.

He couldn't just _give up_, not after all he'd been through! What a _waste_ those three months in the cave had been if this is where he ended; what had been the _point_? Yinsen had _died_ to get him out of there. Why build a suit that could save lives if he couldn't even save his own ass again?

He started dreaming, hallucinating; dying could do that to you. Because he was _finally _dying, and Tony knew it. Dummy tried his whirring best to get him to move, but all Tony saw as he lay there on his back (when had he rolled onto his back?) was the gorgeous woman from his dream. _Virginia_. It was too formal for her. He'd have shortened it to something more manageable, something like… something like Pepper. Pepper Potts. _That_ fitted her personality. She was laughing and smiling, and beckoning to him.

And he wanted to go.

He thought he heard Rhodey calling for him, but he didn't care.

He was headed for his angel.

Tony Stark breathed his last…

.0.o.0.o.0.

_Reviews make updates happen! Please?_


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: **For the record, I wrote this next part of the story before I had seen the trailer for Iron Man 3. You know, the part with the two of them in bed? And Pepper looks like she's being kidnapped? Yeah. My mind scares me sometimes…

Also, updated versions of A Hawk's Nightmare and A Web: Unraveled have been posted; it's mostly just little nitpicky things that were driving me crazy (words not capitalized, letters or words missing, a couple of sentences being completely rewritten so that they now MAKE SENSE…) but Unraveled does have a couple of new sentences added to the second chapter.

**Disclaimer: **I do not own the Avengers or anything to do with the Marvel universe. *choked sob*

.0.o.0.o.0.

Tony woke up slowly, the fog of his nightmare clinging to him. He was on his left side, facing the clock on his nightstand and that was the only reason he knew it was four in the morning. He sat up and swung his legs over the edge of the bed, slowly and achingly, feeling like an old man. He shuffled into the bathroom and leaned heavily on the edge of the sink.

It was a long time before he could meet his own gaze in the mirror.

When he finally did, it took him even longer to come to terms with the man he saw there; a playboy turned hero, billionaire turned philanthropist. But underneath it all, still just a man.

He hadn't had a nightmare about Obadiah in a long time, and one involving Afghanistan… that had been months. Never before though, had he had one where he didn't even know that Pepper _existed_, where he thought she was just a dream or a brief acquaintance. Never before had a dream where she wasn't in his life, to just have this void where Pepper-

Tony's eyes flew open wide; _where was Pepper_? Normally, if he'd been this long in the bathroom, Pepper would have come in to check on him at _least_ once, possibly twice. Just to make sure he was still breathing and nothing in his reactor had popped loose or exploded or anything. But, as he ran back through his mental timeline, trying to remember the last time he'd seen her and what he'd done to piss her off this time, he realized hadn't felt her presence behind him in bed either.

He spun around and sprinted back into his bedroom and _why the hell had he insisted on so much space again?!_

"Pepper!"

He looked around frantically, but there was no sign of her anywhere.

"Pepper!" He was calling out her name at the top of his lungs.

"Sir, Agent Romanoff would like me to convey to you that if you don't stop yelling this instant she will-"

"Not now, JARVIS, I've got to find-"

Tony froze. How stupid of a genius could he be? "JARVIS, where is Pepper?"

"Ms. Potts is currently in the hallway, sir, on her way back from the kitchen." Then he heard her voice.

He didn't think he'd ever heard anything more worried or more beautiful in his life.

"Tony? What's wrong? Tony!"

He swept her up in his arms as she came in the door, hugging her, touching her, assuring himself that she was real.

"Ok," her voice had relaxed a bit. "As much as I love a warm welcome, this-"

Tony kissed her, once, twice, three times.

"Tony!" Pepper said when she could finally speak. Her radar was up and buzzing. "What happened?" She was looking at him as if she were drinking him in, memorizing the sight of him. Apparently he wasn't the only one to have a freaky dream tonight.

"It was-" he stopped. If she'd had a nightmare as well… he couldn't burden her with this. "It was nothing. Just missing you."

"Uh-huh. Right." The CEO of Stark Industries raised an eyebrow but dropped the subject. "Steve picked up some fresh baked cinnamon rolls on one of his trans-city runs. I wanted one before they got cold." She held up the half eaten sweet in her hand. "Want a bite?"

That alone told Tony he was really awake, really here with Pepper. The woman was always asking him to share baked goods. It nearly drove him mad sometimes, but it grounded him like nothing else. Because with Pepper, he could always make time for pastries.

"I'm okay for now; I think I got enough from your lips; you taste _divine_, by the way. You go back to bed, I'm going to stay up for a bit. I know you have that business meeting with the Tokyo reps tonight."

"If you say so…"

"I do say so, Ms. Potts."

"Alright then, Mr. Stark."

She finished her roll, kissed him once more -just a peck on the cheek- and climbed back into bed.

Tony stared after her for several long minutes; long enough for her breathing to slow and even out, long enough that the sun was starting to peek in the windows.

How could his mind, something that -despite Tony doing his best to beat it up with alcohol and caffeine and long days with little sleep- he was sure he had complete control over, tell him something so awful?

Now that he thought about it, he probably deserved whatever his gray matter could dish out at him. But how could he not know it was a dream? He always knew when he was dreaming; even when he was so drunk he couldn't tell up from down, he knew when he was dreaming. So how could his brain tell him that not only had he never met Pepper, but it had killed him when he thought of her?

A shaft of light touched his face and startled him from his thoughts. He walked over to the window and manually lowered the shades. That told him how much the dream had really rattled him, that he was doing things like lowering the blinds himself rather than having JARVIS do it.

Or maybe he just didn't want to wake Pepper. That must be it.

Or maybe it was how much the dream had frightened him, a dream within a dream that he still remembered with _astonishing_ clarity.

Because it wasn't just a dream, it was a twisted memory.

Tony slid into bed behind Pepper, gathering her gently in his arms.

She mumbled something about potatoes.

He grinned slightly. Yep. That was his Pepper.

He buried his face in the hair draped over her neck and breathed her scent in deep. Tony's brain made a mental list of all the little nuances that made her scent so special. Lily of the valley body lotion, her special shampoo that he was _not allowed to touch_ in the shower, a hint of cinnamon and something that he couldn't really describe, something that just made the scent her own. Made it Pepper's.

He wanted to burn the smell of Virginia Potts so deep into his brain that it would never play tricks on him like that again.

They lay there like that all morning; Pepper snoozing and occasionally mumbling a non-sequitor, Tony memorizing everything about her until their alarm went off a few hours later at nine.

When they were both awake, they did the one thing that they could to prove to each other that they were still _here_, still _alive_.

Then they went back to their lives.

.0.o.0.o.0.

_Please tell me if it sucked or not! When there are no reviews, I feel like I just shot my emotions into space and they still haven't come back, or that they have and they've been stomped on._


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